On September 1, Li Auto announced having delivered 28,529 new energy vehicles in August 2025, a 40.7% year-on-year decline from the 48,122 cars delivered last August.

During Li Auto’s earnings call, the company revealed that it expects to deliver 90,000 to 95,000 vehicles during the third quarter of 2025.

Considering that Li Auto had delivered 152,831 new energy vehicles through last year’s third quarter, this guidance represent a year-on-year decline of -41.1% to -37.8%, not something you would expect from a company that is expanding its product line beyond extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) to battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

The guidance implies that Li Auto will deliver a total of 61,471 to 66,471 new energy vehicles through September and October, or on average 30,736 to 33,236 units per month.

On a year-to-date basis as of August 2025, Li Auto has delivered 263,199 new energy vehicles, an 8.6% YoY decline from 288,105 units in 2024.

Li Auto CFO Li Tie added that the company favored maintaining a healthy gross margin over chasing volume, with a 19.4% gross margin in Q2. He further mentioned that they can still maintain a level of about 19%.

While Li Auto has been preparing to introduce a new line-up of all-electric vehicles, many extremely competitive extended-range models from the upper and lower end market were introduced through the last year alone, effectively besieging Li Auto’s EREV dominance with its Li L6/L7/L8/L9.

At the upper end, Huawei-backed HIMA brand AITO has been a formidable competitor to Li Auto, with extended-range SUV models of its own priced similarly to the Li L-series.

HIMA launched the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) in late 2023 to co-develop EVs and the alliance currently includes Seres Group (AITO), Chery (Luxeed), BAIC (Stelato), JAC (Maextro), and SAIC (Shangjie), with AITO accounting for the majority of sales.

AITO currently has four extended-range SUVs on the market: AITO M5 starting at 229,800 yuan, AITO M7 at 249,800 yuan, AITO M8 at 359,800 yuan, and AITO M9 at 469,800 yuan. At the moment, all but the AITO M7 has a fully electric drive train option, but it is expected to launch in September.

Other premium SUVs that are positioned to compete with Li Auto’s large SUVs are the Denza N9 and the recently launched Zeekr 9X. Its all-new electric i8 also faces challenges from fully electric SUVs, such as NIO’s recently launched Onvo L90 and NIO ES8.

From the lower end of the market, Li Auto is facing stiff competition from SUVs produced by Leapmotor and Deepal.

Leapmotor has been trailing Li Auto for the majority of the year but surpassed its sales since May, reaching a record high of 57,066 deliveries in August, which doubled Li’s sales.

Unlike AITO, Leapmotor’s SUVs - which include the Leapmotor C10, C11, C16, and B10 and are priced between 100,000 to 200,000 yuan - don’t directly compete with Li Auto’s cars, which are priced between 250,000 to 450,000 yuan.

Although it is too early to declare that Li Auto has been besieged, the company is undoubtedly under considerable pressure to turn the tide as its sales have declined for four consecutive months since May.

Source: Weibo @李想

Li Auto CEO posted on social media Weibo today "2025 is the first year that Li Auto officially enters the all-electric SUV market, and my inner goal is: by the end of this year, we can 'stay in top 5 and fight for top 3' in the high-end pure electric track, the goal of the Li i8 is 6,000 units/month, and the goal of the Li i6 is 9,000-10,000 units/month, including the Li MEGA, with the overall stable sales level of the all-electric Li Auto lineup is 18,000-20,000 units/month."